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Is the Net an Independent Artist's New Radio? 139

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the get-a-leg-up dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Menta from MP3 Newswire recently posted an article that describes how the Net has shifted his tastes from main stream radio artists to indie acts he discovered online. Slashdot has run a number of articles dealing with the struggles of independent artists and how the net is helping them. Between the recent payola scandal and the incursion of Big Radio into podcasting the major labels are pushing hard to monopolize what they can. The good news is that Big Music is much slower adjusting to the changes brought about by technology than Little Music and the sky is looking rosier for the independent artist. In a July article, CNET also discussed how things are looking much better for the independents."
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Is the Net an Independent Artist's New Radio? More

Is the Net an Independent Artist's New Radio?

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  • No (Score:4, Funny)

    by tonsofpcs ( 687961 ) <slashback@tonsofpc s . com> on Sunday August 21, 2005 @03:30PM (#13367403) Homepage Journal
    It's quite hard to get the internet in my car when driving any distance over a few meters. Radio however works well for many hundreds or thousands of miles [ad infinitum, barring interference]
    • pshaw!, real indie fans ride mopeds.
    • You actually listen to the radio? How can you tolerate that crap?

      • Re:No (Score:2, Informative)

        by erick99 ( 743982 )
        Have you listened to XM or Sirius radio?
        • Nope. Why would I want to pay for radio? The only reason I'd want such a service is if they regularly broadcast concerts. That I would pay for. Otherwise, I have plenty of diverse material in my ever-expanding CD collection.
          • Nope. Why would I want to pay for radio? The only reason I'd want such a service is if they regularly broadcast concerts.

            Well, (NEWS FLASH!), they do offer that service. You pay for lots of stuff, many people actually - gasp - pay for inde music! Maybe you should look into sat radio befor you spout rubish, eh?

          • Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)

            by thc69 ( 98798 )
            First, you said:
            You actually listen to the radio? How can you tolerate that crap?
            Then, when satellite radio was suggested, you said:
            Why would I want to pay for radio?
            Is there something I fail to understand here? First you suggest that free radio sucks, then you question why somebody would pay for something better? Heh...yeah.
            • Is there something I fail to understand here? First you suggest that free radio sucks, then you question why somebody would pay for something better? Heh...yeah.

              I see no contradiction. The "something better" would still be mostly the music I already own. Why should I bother paying for it again, along with other stuff that I may or may not like?

              Again, if any of these services have unique material, like an "Unreleased Rock Concerts" station consisting of concerts that have been broadcasted by radio statio

    • I'm not sure how long it's going to take, but I do see a day when you'll have a decent Internet connection in your car, at which point in time your argument goes away.

      For what it's worth, I listen to virtually no music, but I do think that the Internet is having and will continue to have a tremendous impact on virtually any business that exercises control through limited distribution mechanisms. We've already seen this somewhat in the news industry (via blogging) and music/video (through mechanisms like

      • Re:No (Score:2)

        by Gubbe ( 705219 )
        I'm not sure how long it's going to take, but I do see a day when you'll have a decent Internet connection in your car, at which point in time your argument goes away.

        Interestingly enough, the technology is already here. Any EDGE or UMTS connection should be capable of streaming your everyday 128kbps shoutcasts. Even plain old GPRS should suffice for lower bitrates.

        All you need is a smartphone (symbian, MS, palm, whatever, many exist already) with headphone out and an mp3 player that can play streams.

        I thin

    • Re:No (Score:3, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 )
      While I hate the word, you might want to investigate podcasting. Assuming you have a portable digital music player that plugs into your car, or you an in-car device, you can just download straight to that. If not, then you can set up a script to burn a CDR(W) full of music each morning, and put that in your car.

      • You miss the two big reasons for radio: real time traffic and weather. Most days the weather I can tell by looking out the window, but sometimes it is nice to know what is coming before I see it. (Is that a tornado and I should pull off and find shelter, or just a storm that just slows me down)

        Traffic is big. If I know about an accident that happens after I leave work, but before I get to the road it is on, I can take an alternate route. (though I also need to know if everyone else is taking the alt

        • Not really a problem, in the UK at least. I don't know about elsewhere, but here most in-car radios have a traffic program setting. If any local station in range sets their traffic news flag then it will interrupt the current station and switch to the traffic news. In modern sets this can be used in conjunction with a CD - it pauses the CD when there is traffic news and starts it again afterwards. Doing this, you could listen to podcasts on CD and have them interrupted for other things. As for news, I

    • Re:No (Score:2, Funny)

      by xedd ( 75960 )
      "Radio however works well for many hundreds or thousands of miles"

      Yeah.
      Thousands of miles of frikin COMMERICALS.

      Oldstyle, corporate/corrupt, Milli Vanilli crapola infested "Radio" can suck my quivering antenna.

  • podcasts are made of love (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Many podcasts are less commercial than radio shows, but it doesn't mean that quality would have to suffer. Net is full of great quality podcasts, like Spacemusic spacemusic.libsyn.com [libsyn.com] and some lowsy low quality ones (and still interesting) like lugradio [lugradio.org]

  • Radio isn't just about music. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @03:36PM (#13367428)
    The concept of "radio", as in the means to relatively easily and affordably address large masses of people, does not revolve around music.

    Another very important component is the dispersal of political thought. Indeed, that perhaps overrides the importance of music any day. If it were not for the independence of the current Internet, groups such as the 9/11 truth movement would never have been able to deliver their message to so many people.

  • Same here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr2cents ( 323101 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @03:37PM (#13367434)
    Radio stations are controlled by the record companies, they try to force-feed you with all the crap they're trying to sell. Problem is, I'm not interested in commerce, I want to listen to quality music. So now there are these great specialized internet radio's with music I never heard before. Or you can leech months worth of music on your HD from friends, listen to it and decide for yourself what you like. It's great!

    • Re:Same here (Score:3, Interesting)

      by superpulpsicle ( 533373 )
      I am wondering if corporations are already controlling the future of radio now. If you go to iTunes, the top 10 podcast feeds used to be anyone's talk show out of their basement.

      Now it's all ABC, Ebert Roeper, Newsweek same shit you see on the newstand. Why waste time with a new medium, if it is the same people delivering the same message.

      • Gee, it must be because Apple and big media are in cahoots to smother out all independent forms of media. It's not because millions of people want to listen to ABC, Ebert and Newsweek--nobody ever liked those shows anyway. Right?
      • Now it's all ABC, Ebert Roeper, Newsweek same shit you see on the newstand. Why waste time with a new medium, if it is the same people delivering the same message.

        It's because Time/Warner and company bid on that space on the iTunes site. That's fair enough to me. The whole point of iTunes, from Apple's perspective, is to make money, which the media conglomerates have. The natural progression of this is to find that the top 10 podcast feeds are McMedia. I sympathize, but my advice is to just scroll down

        • "It's because Time/Warner and company bid on that space on the iTunes site"

          Maybe for the banner graphics, but I think the original poster was referring to the top 10 text list, complied by Apple based on number of subscribers.

          The explanation for this shift is logical, but not very exciting. As more and more people hear about and subscribe to Podcasts, more generic "mass appeal" popular content is going to get subscribed to by more aggregate people than the devoted fans of the narrow interest casts. When

      • Why waste time with a new medium, if it is the same people delivering the same message.

        Because at least people now have the choice of listening to something less mainstream.

    • Re:Same here (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mini me ( 132455 )
      Radio stations are controlled by the record companies, they try to force-feed you with all the crap they're trying to sell.

      Ironically, they play the songs so often that there is no need to buy the music, even if you do like it.

    • Problem is, I'm not interested in commerce, I want to listen to quality music.

      I don't give a hoot about "quality" music :) I like gritty bootlegged concerts. If a top 40 act can put on a good live show, so be it. To date, off hand, I can't think of any.

      So now there are these great specialized internet radio's with music I never heard before.

      Now we're talkin'. I purchase maybe a CD a month. Since the dawn of napster, I have only purchased one top 40 cd -- and that was the recent Foo Fighters. Eve

  • future of radio (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SolusSD ( 680489 )
    It (hopefully) will evolve into digital radio over FM frequencies (first starting with a couple as car stereos and home stereos support the digital format) that are streamed off of the internet where radio stations can provide commercial or private content.

  • Why bring RIAA into this? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm not so sure bringing the RIAA into this article added much to the point it was trying to make. The fact that file traders end up buying more music than non-traders is inconsequential if the focus of article is getting music on the web. What about an effort by the artists themselves to get their music out there, like hosting tracks on websites or podcasting? P2P isn't the only way to get yourself heard, and volunteering to distribute your music keeps aside the whole RIAA issue. I agree that the net is mo
    • A music track is often several MBs. Even if you are just distributing a sample track from an album, it only takes a couple of hundred downloaders a month and that's 1GB/month. Many more, and the bandwidth bill starts to get expensive. Using peer-to-peer technologies, on the other hand, means that the fans each contribute a small amount of bandwidth, reducing costs for small groups. The ideal medium might be a combination of bittorrent and podcasting - the RSS feed links to a .torrent, and the .torrent c
  • Probably not: there will always be people willing to pay to watch (not really hear) the latest Britney Spears video. But with the advances in collaborative filtering and machine learning it will be possible to look for good music, based on your tastes and them only. At that point how many artist will really look for an industry label?

    The radio will obviously follow. An automatic "intelligent" agent will probably be able to build up a playlist based on your mood and taste. Let's hope we will not have to w


  • Payola has been around for many, many years and will certainly be around for many more. If small labels are so foolish as to think that the Sony case will increase their ability to gain radio airtime, it is no wonder that they are a small label.

  • Absolutely (Score:4, Informative)

    by kerrle ( 810808 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @03:42PM (#13367465) Journal
    I started listing to SomaFM's [somafm.com] Groove Salad a year or so ago, and it's tipped me off to several artists I wouldn't have otherwise known existed.

    If I lived in a larger city, maybe there'd be enough of an independent music scene that this wouldn't be necessary, but in South Texas, it just isn't there (unless you're into Tejano).

    • I have discovered a number of bands/individuals that I never would have heard of through dmusic ( http://dmusic.com/ [dmusic.com]) that I never would have encountered anywhere else. There is a lot of cruft to sort through, but quite a few terrific tracks as well. I haven't listened to commercial radio in many years, I just can't find anything worth hearing and what little worthwhile content their is is ruined by jarring advertisements every few minutes. My car radio is tuned to NPR, and Sirius in the bedroom brings in
    • If by south texas, you mean Corpus Christi, then yes; Corpus Christi has the worst selection of radio I've ever heard in my life.

      Then again, unless you're in Houston or Austin, you're pretty screwed in terms of radio.

      An iPod or satellite radio are the only ways you can escape it! ;)
      • Bingo, Corpus Christi it is. It's not just the radio, either - the local music scene is just as bad.

        There are still a handful of interesting musicians, but really, we're close enough to Austin that almost anyone with talent has already moved.

  • Big Radio is going down (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tunabomber ( 259585 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @03:45PM (#13367477) Homepage
    I can easily imagine a time when the only remaining stronghold of Clearchannel clone stations and their ilk is the morning commute. They might be trying to "monopolise" newer mediums like webradio and podcasting, but it just can't happen because there's no scarcity of broadcast bandwidth (as is the case with radio spectrum).

    If you buy the Long Tail [typepad.com] theory, it looks like the media market will become only more diverse as we increase our global bandwidth capacity.
    • Cumulus' and Clearchannel's profit margins are thin. Satellite and Internet radio will eat away at the remainder, and the two hegemons will fold. Just give it a few years for these institutional sociopaths to die.

      I foresee broadcast radio as the province of a few 50,000-watt megastations who have the huge listening audiences to make ad sales profitable, and a handfull of community-supported stations who rely on quality programming. The broadcast market won't support anything else if it has to compete wi

    • "because there's no scarcity of broadcast bandwidth (as is the case with radio spectrum)."

      Uh, They could just make laws to solve that. That is the whole reason for copyright.

  • Missing Link? (Score:1, Funny)

    by jtbauki ( 838979 )
    All we need left is something to connect the layman (a.k.a. non-/.) with the indie artists. Something like napster for internet radio. Whoever can create the link will be forever immortalized like that one dude who created napster.
    • the layman (a.k.a. non-/.)

      Not all Slashdotters are snobs like you...

    • iTunes? It has built-in support for podcasting in the same interface as the music store. I've not used it much, but it seems to be quite layman-compatible (assuming that iTMS is, which it seems to be).

    • Re:Missing Link? (Score:5, Informative)

      by rhandir ( 762788 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @05:03PM (#13367833)
      Gotcha right here: http://irate.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

      Imagine listening to the radio and being able to influence what kind of stuff you hear. Imagine hearing all kinds of things that you've never heard of before. Imagine no "...buffering..."

      iRate does this.

      Oh, and:
      Open source? Check!
      Supports Creative Commons? Check!
      Legal Downloads? Check!
      Runs on Linux? Check!
      Free as in Beer? Check!
      Did I mention no streaming?

      More detail:
      Technical explanation with easy to understand diagram here:
      http://irate.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
      Site you can send the non-technically inclined to here:
      http://www.irateradio.com/ [irateradio.com]

      "Just click on the executable. No, really, it's safe this time."

      Oh and the guy's name is "ajones". He's a kiwi. Mad props to kiwis.

  • No question about it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Crixus ( 97721 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @03:54PM (#13367508)
    I don't think there's any question that the net is the new radio. Whether it be talk or music, Podcasts have shown that they can get REAL ratings.

      Like with so many things, either the dissemintation of information, music, or software, the internet is a great delivery mechanism with a ridiculously huge distribution potential.

        Let's take advantage of it. Speaking of which, check out my sig.

      Rich...
  • Odd question. Kinda like asking:

    Is the automobile the bicycle of the future?

    Is television the radio of the future?

    Is the space shuttle the car of the future?

    Is the radio the talking of the future?

    Things are what they are capable of being, not more or less.

    *shrug*

  • Indie Podcasts are the new college radio (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    www.75minutes.com

    This is a perfect example of a radio show with knowledgable hosts and DJs, well-informed interviews, excellently selected indie music, indie music news, etc. In fact it is a picture-perfect radio show... but it's a podcast.
    • I looked around for a decent indie podcast for awhile, and found 75 MInutes, and it's great.

      It has an iTunes feed that includes chapters, pictures, and links, so I can skip a song or two I don't like. Very nice. I wish more people would include that.

      Also, it includes songs from independent artists from all over the world. From Japan to Belgium. I would never have found that kind of stuff on my own. Very cool.
    • Are you kidding? This is better than any indie radio I've ever heard! Unless you live in the mecca of cool, you aren't going to hear this fabulous music on your radio dials. Even then, you still won't. Get your advance tracks before anyone else does. Tune in or be tuned out of the up and coming music of the ought generation. Seriously. It's that good. You won't love every song. But that's the beauty of it. There is something new and different for people of all tastes. Enjoy!

  • No matter what, it's hard work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21, 2005 @04:09PM (#13367561)
    Speaking as a music artist, there is no easy way to get your music out. No matter what type of medium or media, it always involves a lot of patience, work, and dedication.

    -pronobozo

  • WOXY (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @04:16PM (#13367592) Homepage
    Not only is WOXY.com [woxy.com] an independently owned and operated web radio station that is commercial free and has live dj's M-F that play requests, they are also restarting their unsigned band contest as Unsigned@woxy.com [woxy.com] an hour-long show and a podcast for unsigned artists.

  • the RIAA already knows this... (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @04:16PM (#13367594) Homepage
    And that's why they've tried to stifle the genesis of internet radio streams, by setting the standard licensing rates very high and using patents on both the techniques and the technology to suppress the services. Internet radio definitely has the potential to break the RIAA's monopoly on introducing people to new artists.
    • as long as the RIAA has the ability to use the legal system to adjust rates and enforce patents, things will remain as they are.

      We live by the golden rule; those with the gold (the international corporations) make the rules. All of this crap is just bread and circuses.

  • Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by neo ( 4625 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @04:18PM (#13367599)
    "The Music Industry" controls two parts of a long chain:

    artist -> art -> marketing/advertising -> distribution -> retailer -> listener

    It's pretty obvious that people can only like music they have heard, so "The Music Industry" tried to control radio, where listeners could hear music for free (if you consider being forced to hear commercials free) what "The Music Industry" wanted you to buy. In fact, the playlist was often created by a single person at the station who more or less made money from the industry by pushing certain "products".

    An artist had two choices. Sell out and let "The Music Industry" take care of marketing/advertising -> distribution and give up large control over their art in their contracts -or- go indie with a smaller label that didn't have the power to really get a large audience to hear the music.

    The internet has taken care of one half of the problem. So distribution is now available more or less for free when compared to shipping CD's to retail stores.

    What's missing right now is marketing/advertising. You have to get people to hear a song before they can decide they like it or not. Apple figured this out and now that's what PodCasting is about. If you find a PodCast you like, then you are likely to find music there you want... and Apple hopes you buy it from the iTunes Music Store.

    But the whole current system is flawed, IMO. I'm certainly in the minority with this opinion, but I view artist, musicians in this case, as part of a service industry. They don't make property, like a chair or a computer, they create music, which is not physical and hence can't be owned. But that's a debate for another thread.

    The good news? Big Music is going to die and it doesn't even know it. The bad news? Artist need to switch to a neo-patronage system to get paid when information trading gets to the point that it kills Big Music.

    • Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geekd ( 14774 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @05:04PM (#13367837) Homepage
      artist -> art -> marketing/advertising -> distribution -> retailer -> listener

      Quite true.

      I am an "independent musician". I distibute my music over the web. I know many, many other musicians who do so also.

      Most musicians I know are quite good at the art part, and quite bad/clueless at the marketing part (myself included). Marketing is mostly salesmanship. Musicians, for the most part, are not salesmen. Mostly, we dislike salesmen.

        If you look at sucessfull bands that came from the indie scene, either they were good at marketing, or had someone on their side that was.

      Marketing is phone calls, footwork, contacts, etc. We'd rather smoke weed and write songs. :)

      Here's my marketing: go check out my band: http://theexperiments.com/ [theexperiments.com] Free music for download.

      See, that's about as much marketing as most bands can do. Now, where's the bong?

      -dave

      • Re:Marketing versus Distribution. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Gonarat ( 177568 ) * on Sunday August 21, 2005 @09:59PM (#13369147)

        If you look at sucessfull bands that came from the indie scene, either they were good at marketing, or had someone on their side that was.

        Marketing is phone calls, footwork, contacts, etc. We'd rather smoke weed and write songs. :)

        That is what a record label should do. A band should be able to sign up with a label/promoter for a fair cost. Unfortunately the RIAA labels are not this way. Instead of being the Artist's friend, they have turned into greedy little maggots that not only take money from the Artist, but also wants to own their music (copyright). This has worked in the past, but Artists are starting to get wise and use the Internet to get their music out. There are also Independent labels and sites (DMusic.com, CDBaby.com, and Garageband.com) just to name a few that are willing to give the Artist a fair shake.

        Hopefully sites like this will prosper and the big labels will continue to lose business.

        I'll check out your site -- I'm always looking for something new.

      • mod this post up, and check out their music. it's pretty good!
      • The thing is, the absolute best word of marketing is simply word of mouth from other fans, and evangelists for you that are not paid by you.

        So it doesn't matter how many people you pay to market something as it will never really be as effective as people that are not marketers.

        So, for a band to do well in the future on thier own, I think they have to (a) produce good music, and (b) be really excited about the band and tell anyone they can about it. If you have a lot of energy regarding your band that coul
    • The problem, as far as net music/radio/whatever is concerned is PUBLICITY. You may put music on your site (hell, I do) but if nobody knows it's there then you're just having fun.. which I am! Maybe the bigger problem is that the audience (or maybe the majority of the audience) of music listeners have come to accept it as a passive medium. That's to say it is not something they actually go out and find it is something that finds them. Record companies spend an absolute fortune on marketing and advertising t
    • They don't make property, like a chair or a computer, they create music, which is not physical and hence can't be owned.

      If nobody had to worry about money, or if all artists could get paid AS MUCH upfront for their intangible creation service vs per instance, then they wouldn't need to lean on the artificial scarcity of an (unbalanced) copyright.

      People understand that information isn't REAL property, but the current outofwhack social contract is to grant a person not-so-temporary artificial property cop

      • Agreed. The odd thing is that there isn't really an incentive to create more from owning copyrights. The incentive of artist, it's been my experience, is to create and communicate. It's the distributors that buy the copyrights from the artist who are intent on controlling information as if it were property.

        Most musicians just want people to hear their music. It's about communication, not money. If they can somehow live off the act of creation, then so much the better.

        Market economics breaks when you ef
    • The real money in music will be in live performance - which has been the case for a while for many bands anyway - it's only been relatively recently that Big Music has found wanna-be artists who are dumb enough to let them take much of a cut of their live revenues.

      I think we can look forward to a really fragmented music scene - similar to the alternative/indy scene in the early nineties, when there was a lot of stuff about, but when people tended only to stick with what they listened to, and not cross over
    • I live in Dallas, and the radio here is terrible. We have no good college or community radio to fill the gap, so I've been doing a lot of research on how to get something better on the air here. We have a terrible Clear Channel top 40 "alternative" station here, but from about 89-94 when the station started, it really was an alternative station, playing almost no top 40 and lots of indie.

      I recently had lunch with the guy that started that station, and probably the most interesting fact I learned was that t
  • I been riding the indie web music wave for over a year now, and I can say that its better then the radio. Sites like epitonic, webjay, insound, and even cnet's own download.com are allowing indie bands a chance to get theirs names out there, legally. I honestly don't even listen to the radio (for music) anymore. Instead I go to one of the above mentioned sites, or artist/record label site, download some free, legal, (most importantly) DRM-free music, drop it onto my ipod, plug the pod into the car, and bame

  • Edgen (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There were a bunch of artists I discovered on mp3.com and this [edgen.com] was one of the best.
  • It seems /.ers love to throw the term monopoly around whenever there's competition between a large company and a small company. In reality, there are 5 major labels in competition with songs for you to hear, as well as hundreds of smaller labels, and large numbers of garage bands. There is no monopoly on music. In fact popular artists often start on smaller labels, and then, sign with the one of the big 5 when they make it big (REM for instance). Yes, the internet is a good tool for exposure for unknown art
    • How about "collusion" - all "five major labels" fall under the RIAA. Purchasing legislation should be illegal. What legislation? Oh, I don't know... *cough*DMCA*cough*. Payola? Wait, that's not legal! Oh, boy, oh boy.

      When the big boys start using their beatin' sticks on the small guys, don't be suprised when suddenly everyone treats the big boys as evil.
    • There is a monopoly (oligarchy perhaps?) when the RIAA is in control. Most "indie" labels are distributed by a major and thus are indirectly RIAA controlled entities. The ones that are not are sometimes regional, mostly small market labels that serve a particular genre of music. You won't find the small labels' items on the shelves of many mainstream stores because of the RIAA and their distribution deals with retailers.

      Small mom&pop record stores are the best bet, but then it depends on where you liv

  • Last FM (Score:5, Informative)

    by CowboyBob500 ( 580695 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @04:38PM (#13367709) Homepage
    Last FM [www.last.fm] is a great concept. Basically it uses a system similar to Amazon's recommended links. You download their player (don't worry, open source, BSD license, Mac/Linux/Windows) and you type the name of a band in the box. It then streams music the database thinks is similar. You can vote to skip, ban, or love a track.

    When you've done it for a while you'll have your own profile. You can then go and listen to music that your "musical neighbours" are listening to.

    Lots of indie music on there. Lots of everything on there.

    Bob

    (Not affiliated with them)

    • Re:Last FM (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by RPoet ( 20693 )
      I'm a long-time last.fm/audioscrobbler user, but I haven't heard about this player software of theirs. Are you mistaken, or can you point me to it? :)

      • Re:Last FM (Score:3, Informative)

        by CowboyBob500 ( 580695 )
        http://www.last.fm/help/player/ [www.last.fm]

        Bob

      • Re:Last FM (Score:3, Informative)

        by FullCircle ( 643323 )
        http://www.last.fm/help/player/ [www.last.fm]

        Interestingly, it has an OSX, Linux static binary, FreeBSD and FreeBSD AMD64 version and QT4 BSD licensed source.

        So is this just late 90's radio? That's what it looks like.

        • Re:Last FM (Score:3, Informative)

          by CowboyBob500 ( 580695 )
          Nope, it's everything from classical to the latest releases.

          In the player, select "change station", type in a band and listen to similar artists. This updates your profile with the stuff you've listened to.

          Or get the plugin for your favourite MP3 player and it will update your profile as you listen to your MP3s.

          Once you have a decent size profile you'll be able to click on "Start Radio" and choose "Neighbour Radio" which streams stuff that other people who listen to the same kind of music you do ha

        • No... (Score:2)

          by msimm ( 580077 )
          Its go a bit of everything, its related to the audioscrobbler project mentioned on slashdot here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org].

          I get the feeling it more geared towards independant music, but I would because I run my own station (and skip those other songs).

          Its definately worth giving a listen from time to time.

    • Re:Last FM (Score:4, Funny)

      by humankind ( 704050 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @10:38PM (#13369301) Journal
      I typed in "Radiohead" and it recommended "Coldplay".

      NO THANKS!
    • the biggest problem with last.fm / audioscrobbler is that you can't say "god damn, I hate this band" for e.g. coldplay. that is the only feature that seems to be missing.
  • 75 Minutes http://75minutes.com/ [75minutes.com] offers an eclectic assortment of great independent music in a podcast format. They have both an AAC feed (with chapters and other goodies) as well as an mp3-based feed for non-iTunes users. In addition there are indie news segments and interviews with independent artists. IMO, this show is about as good as it gets on the interwebs and waayy better than anything you'll hear on commercial radio. Give it a shot, you will not be disappointed.
  • Radio was never concieved in the beginning as a way to give artist exposure, but that's what it ended up as, in addition to being an advertising tool. To be honest, radio is more of a producer's tool, then an artist's tool. It enables a producer to reach millions of people easily. Very rarely do you see an artist who has enough pull or money to break into the radio scene by themselves. The internet is much more of an artist's tool. There is no money needed to get exposure on the net. You can reach an

  • It isn't just payola (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jeffkjo1 ( 663413 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @05:42PM (#13367994) Homepage
    Between the recent payola scandal and the incursion of Big Radio into podcasting the major labels are pushing hard to monopolize what they can.

    The problems with FM radio go far beyond payola. Music Director's no longer pick songs to play because they thing that the song will be something their listeners will think is cool. Music Director's now rely almost exclusively on what the trade magazines (R&R and Billboard) say is popular. The trade magazines get their information from the bigger stations, which pay consultants to pick out songs
    The consultants are not picking songs because listeners will think it is something new and interesting and might bring in new ears, but rather, they pick songs based on the idea of 'please, please, we can't lose/offend any of our existing listeners.'

    This is a poor business model, as it doesn't bring in new people, and this a big reason radio is losing listeners to the internet.

    Stations that only play 250 songs (1 days worth) on a rotating basis is another.
  • Satelite radio with a subscription based revenue model.

    Web allowing for an unlimited number of band sites / indie radio casts.

    Broadcast radio delivering 'news' (read: Clear Channel spin) and what ends up in the top 40 (through quality, payola or a combination).

    Excuse the Mao quote. Mabey the majors will end up sending the indie rockers away for reeducation (in the red states(?))
  • Is the Net an Independent Artist's New Radio?

    Is this question about 4 years late?

  • Using iTunes, I found WMSE (the Milwaukee School of Engineering). Excellent. Right now I am listening to the Italian Hour. Buono.

  • WFMU (Score:3, Informative)

    by jaypaulw ( 889877 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @06:30PM (#13368199)
    I still like the idea of "DJ" as the one who seaches among the literally thousands of releases (each tuesday in the US) to find the gems. And I like the idea of quality control. And I like the idea of the personality of the DJ being part of that whole experience. And the sort of implied "take my word for it" because in the past they've been right again and again.

    Hence the reason why when it comes to music WFMU is unbeatable.

    It's still teresterial radio, but it's otherwise available on the internet at 128k for free, of course, you should pledge if you like.

  • shifting tastes.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Sunday August 21, 2005 @07:48PM (#13368618)
    describes how the Net has shifted his tastes from main stream radio artists to indie acts he discovered online.

        Individual tastes are always shifting. The internet doesn't really have that much to do with it. It all depends on the individual and their mood. This person would have found new music at some other source (the library, perhaps? Or blasting out of car window at a red light?) because they were in the mood for new music.

        Sometimes I go months without listening to anything newer than 1968. I'll run Kazaa for hours searching for obscure pop songs from 1963-1968. It's as if music just stopped in the early 1970's. Others feel the same with perhaps different time periods.

        For music period focus, the internet is invaluable. But for just exposure to different music, it's not the best medium. You need to know nearly exactly what you want before you can find it on the net.

        A better way to get exposure to different music is to become part of drive share. This is where a hard drive (an older one with maybe 30 Gigabytes) is traded for one that is filled with each sharer's favorite music. Each person swaps an old drive with another person. The drives have the other person's favorite music on it. Each person puts only a gigabyte or so of music on it. Eventually you get a hard drive that has the favorite music of 30 different people with each person putting hundreds of minutes of their favorite music on it. No one makes judgement of the other's selections: no one erases the other's partition: no one hassles with so-called copyright issues.

        The old method of music distribution and dissemination is rapidly fading and no realistic model is taking its place. You know that when an industry reaching the point where they trying to put its best customers in jail and extort large amounts of money from them because they can't resolve a pricing issue, the industry is in a lot of trouble.

        I'm finding it all amusing. I especially like the part about how if the 'artists' aren't paid, then they won't produce any more quality product. Like if enough people copy Rod Zombie tracks, he's going to go sell insurance. Or if people don't pay $18 for Pink CDs, she's going to get discouraged and become a network applications engineer. Yeah, right... Popular music 'artists' and stars don't really have much choice about what they do, they are going to continue to do it whether they get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars or not. What the RIAA is really saying is that if people stop paying $18 for junk music, the music company executives will actually have to find some way to justify their huge salaries and perk packages. Heaven forbid! The 'artists' will just go back to whatever shithole that they were discovered from.
        The real issue with the RIAA is whether music can really be bought and sold anymore. The concept that five people playing the same songs as everybody else with slightly different words and chord patterns can go to a recording studio for a week and a hundred million dollars comes to the record company is simply breaking down. It's dependent on a 20th century centrallized media and distribution model. It used to work and work well; it doesn't anymore. Putting people in prison and extorting money from them isn't going to change anything except cause the occasional music industry lawyer to get shot by people who disagree with the concept that they have to pay a fine for being the one in a million singled out by the RIAA to be fined for downloading some stupid inconseqencial pop song.

        Music is like air. Everybody takes it in, puts it back out. It's absurd to claim that somebody wrote a pop or rock song that is basicly the same as the pop and rock songs that have been playing on the radio for the past 40 years. Music is simply part of the environment, no one can realistically claim to 'own' it. It doesn't matter what the law is. This is the new reality.
  • Every time I turn on that radio in the car, I can barely stay tuned to one station for any amount of time. Generally I come in on the very end of a song I like, or I have to cycle through the same sets of commercial for the LOWEST PRICES OF THE YEAR--AGAIN!

    I guess that's because I have no loyalty to any one station. I'm loyal to the content, not the provider, and the providers really suck.

    'Casts can bring loyalty not only to the content but *also* to the provider, because they tend to be one and the same.
  • Most places I have been, there has been no electronic music radio station. Since that is predominantly what I listen to, I am forced to go to the internet, there is no choice for me.

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